Klara Force is a guitarist for Swedish sleaze metal band Crucified Barbara, who are currently on an American tour with fellow Swedish luminaries Crashdïet. Last July, Crucified Barbara released The Midnight Chase, their third full-length, and it came with a North American exclusive track called “Acid Rain.”
The band will be performing in NYC at the Gramercy Theatre on Saturday, April 13. I recently spoke with Force to discuss The Midnight Chase, their tour, and more. The transcription is below:
The music scene in Stockholm today seems to resemble the scene in Los Angeles in the ‘80s. Can you explain what Stockholm means for the new wave of Swedish sleaze metal?
I think in Sweden there have been a lot of harder metal bands coming out of Gothenburg, which is another city in Sweden. I think Stockholm now is starting to get noticed with all the cool hard rock bands. Why that is, I do not know. However, Sweden has always been a great country for harder music, such as hard rock, death metal, all sorts of music in the heavier genre.
Another Swedish band, Crashdïet, are performing in Japan this year, and The Midnight Chase was released over there last May. Will a tour in Asia be in the works for later this year?
We are planning on going to China, which is pretty cool; not a lot of bands play there. It’s going to be really cool, it’s going to be a blast. I know for sure we are doing a big article in the Japanese magazine Burrn! about this tour that we are on right now in the U.S.; Burrn! magazine wanted to cover it.
We definitely are hoping to play in Japan. It’s been a lifelong dream to get over there. I want to take in everything that is different, just like the way I am doing now in the U.S. Everything is so different from Sweden; everyday is an adventure, like going to the grocery store is different. I will try to experience China the same way I am doing with America.
What have been your most special memories off stage from South By Southwest and in the streets of Los Angeles?
Both sites were great. At the South By Southwest festival, we played at a pool party and on the side of everything. We played right at the pool. It was so great coming from such a cold place like Sweden with the snow. We were just standing there with a bunch of crazy people, and it was a great moment.
Los Angeles was really cool, I have never been there before. We were walking around just looking at everything. It seemed like I’m in the movies, looking at things I have only seen on television and in films, and it was great. It felt a bit surrealistic and it was very cool.
“Count Me In” sounds like the darkest and most introspective song on The Midnight Chase. What was going on when you wrote that particular song, and does it have a personal story connected to it?
It started out with me and [drummer] Nicki Wicked; we wrote that song at my place. We were sitting and she was drumming on the kitchen table, and I was playing the acoustic guitar. Then we recorded it at a demo at my place. It was a lot more upbeat, like an ordinary rock song. It was alright, but it wasn’t perfect, so we said to try something different. Then we just jammed when we were rehearsing and Mia [Coldheart, vocalist/guitarist] brought her lap steel guitar, and we thought, “Let’s do something completely different.” We took away the drums and the electric guitar and made everything soft sounding.
The inspiration at first for the lyrics for me was reading about the Baader-Meinhof, the German left wing terrorist society; like a strong leader, someone you will follow. You campaign and get messed up, you can go anywhere or do anything. They were a group in the 1970s; an anti-capitalist left wing terrorist organization. I don’t think they are around anymore though. They have been doing a lot of books and movies about them. You definitely should watch the movie The Baader-Meinhof Complex.
What can you say about the song “Acid Rain,” which is the North American exclusive track on The Midnight Chase?
It’s a song we actually wrote a long time ago—many years ago. We have been trying to get it just right and we recorded a demo a couple of years ago. It was a completely different version with other lyrics. We weren’t really satisfied with it, but we didn’t want to throw it away. We picked it up again for the recording on The Midnight Chase, and did some work on it. We changed the choruses completely, as well as the lyrics.
It’s about taking care of the environment, as well as society consuming and throwing stuff away. That’s the theme of the song. It’s a bad thing to over-consume and pollute the planet. We constantly record demos at the home and we don’t throw anything away. So we are not only recycling our garbage, we are also recycling our songs (laughs).
Crucified Barbara will play at the Gramercy Theatre in NYC on Saturday, April 13. For more information, go to crucifiedbarbara.com.
